Doug Pietrzak takes the win!
Horseshoe Chain, June 16-17, 2006, by Shawn Haag

MFBA Qualifying Event June 15 & 16

Conditions: 
Air Temps 85-90 degrees
Water temps 70-76 degrees
Winds 5-15
Post spawn

  Congratulations to Doug Pietrzak for taking home the first ever TBF MFBA State Championship. Doug used his local knowledge and targeted sand spots in the weeds knowing a lot of fish were cursing and guarding fry. He used a soft plastic stick bait and a Shaggy Jig day one to put over 14 pounds in the boat. The first fish he boated was a 4.64 largemouth also big fish of the tournament. He finished the day in third place only ounces behind the leaders.

Day two Doug was paired with first day leader Chad Keller. Chad had found fish using a big weed flat and targeted them with Stanley ’s Ribbit Frog. Chad also used a soft plastic stick bait to follow up the frog if he didn’t connect on the blow up. Chad said they were hitting the frog so good he used over five bags on day one. Chad and Doug are good friends and both had a lot of local knowledge they put together on day two. Chad missed a couple key fish day two, so Doug was able to slip in front by less than a pound. Both anglers talked about it being tough going head to head as leaders in the same boat so finishing 1 and 2 was something to be proud of.

Third place went to Jose Soria. He also had some local knowledge of the lake. By spending the first day with day one leader he learned by throwing a fluke over the shallow weed flats he could get some fish behind the frog pattern. So Jose used that on day two to put together the biggest bag of the tournament over 15 pounds to move up to third place.

Minnesota ’s top Twelve

1. Doug Pietrzak
2. Chad Keller
3. Jose Soria
4. Bob Kuhn
5. Jim Severson
6. Bob Sandquist
7. Shaun Haag “FutureBass Pro Staff”
8. Chris Denn
9. David Cliff
10. Steve Quinn
11. Tim Domaillie “ FutureBass Pro Staff”
12. Pat Martin

Stats:
Total Participants: 24
Total Fish Weight: 451.76
Total Fish Weighed: 208
Average Fish Weight: 2.17